longing

as your body is gone from me, my voice grows smaller. 
i have layers upon me like the matted hair of a cat
and in all my bodily being there is but one small resident of a mouse. 
its heart beats so fast i am afraid of it like a thumbprint. 
how easily it might be eclipsed. 
i push it back underneath the table out of harm's way
where it manages to stay alive, warm like an earlobe,
waiting for your return.

the small blue bird

the small blue bird is, of course, a metaphor

but that makes it no less real

once there were leaves

once where there were leaves
now there is silence
a heartbeat between two cupped hands
a hair's length before the talk begins again
of when and where and how
new leaves will grow

book and table

it's a quiet night.  he picks up a book and begins to read.  the story might go anywhere despite what the words drilled onto the page might suggest.  it is this way with writing, with love, with each new day, with life;  the story becomes what the story becomes.

winter day

how much

low little

comprises anything
everything?

earrings

 the gift of self over and over again, this almighty nugget of i that i would like to break

and yet it is upon my ears, i-ears, that your love does hang

 

she

she lopes through the wilderness

i strain to hear her

as though she might ever be captured

mother son

mother daughter

 

in light and shadow

it was a winter night

when he lit the candles

and set down his book.

i sat still

watching the match

struggle against the bureau top.

it raised its head like a bruised man

toward the heady flames,

not wanting to be extinguished.

anatomy of a house

there must be structure at the core

lately we find safe and quiet places to be in our house, as though we need to find shelter from even its larger more noisy being.  my children and i take to my bed fully clothed, read books, lounge, touch one another's fingers.  this structure is more sound than any load bearing wall.  i am in love with this intimacy.  i think of putting a king sized bed in the living room and kicking in the tv.



inside this simple day

what joy~

storms come (and go) suddenly

i am sitting at my desk

expecting the outside world 

to be as i left it

in an easy moment

i look up into a storm

it rails against every window

what else can i do

but shout for joy?

you know nothing, erin

you are so small

yes, yes~

your name is a -

Poems For Blok

Your name is a - bird in my hand

a piece of - ice on the tongue

one single movement of the lips.

Your name is:  five signs,

a ball caught in flight, a

silver bell in the mouth

a stone, cast in a quiet pool

makes the splash of your name, and

the sound is in the clatter of

night hooves, loud as a thunderclap

or it speaks straight into my forehead,

shrill as the click of a cocked gun.

Your name - how impossible, it

is a kiss in the eyes on

motionless eyelashes, chill and sweet.

Your name is a kiss of snow

a gulp of icy spring water, blue

as a dove.  About your name: sleep deepens.

Marina Tsvetaeva  1916

the point of embodiment/disembodiment